Welcome to The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup on Tuesday 25 June 2024 bringing you the latest updates from across the world.
Appointments
Atom bank, the UK app-based bank, appoints Gareth Jones as its new chief risk officer. He replaces Chris Sparks, who is retiring after nine years at the bank. Jones joins Atom bank from The Co-operative Bank, where he has worked for 26 years, most recently as chief risk officer. In his role, Jones will ensure that Atom bank maintains and further enhances its risk-management culture.
Salad Money, a social enterprise established in 2019 to offer an alternative to high-cost lending for individuals with full-time jobs and poor, thin, or non-existent credit histories, has appointed Rupert MacInnes to its board as a non-executive director. MacInnes previously served as the head of legal, compliance, and external affairs at Capital One.
Tribe Payments, the digital payments and infrastructure orchestrator, has named Andrew Hocking as its new CEO. Previously chief strategy officer, Hocking’s new role sees him accelerate Tribe’s expansion, building on its strong growth to date. Prior to joining Tribe Payments, he held roles at Pay.com, Network International and Elavon.
DTCC, the post-trade market infrastructure for the global financial services industry, appoints Felix Simon as DTCC site lead in its Abu Dhabi office. Simon will lead support efforts related to DTCC’s activities in the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) and its relationships with local authorities, with a focus on the DTCC Digital Assets portfolio. Simon will also help oversee business and support functions in the Abu Dhabi office.
ekko has appointed two leaders to strengthen its team as part of its strategic scaling efforts. Anthony Thomson, the founder and former chairman of Metro Bank, has joined the company’s board of directors, with Majda Dabaghi also named as the company’s new chief sustainability officer. The appointments reflect ekko’s ambition as it looks to expand following the company’s recent $2.5million in funding.
More hires
MoneyLion has named Jon Kaplan as the company’s first chief revenue officer. Kaplan has previously worked at technology companies, including Pinterest and Google. Kaplan will lead MoneyLion’s go-to-market strategy, with a focus on expanding the market share of MoneyLion’s digital financial ecosystem.
London-based fintech Pozitive Payments has appointed Alex Daly as its new chief financial officer. He joins from UK ethical financial services company Algbra, where he also served as CFO. He’s also a non-executive director at the UK peer-to-peer lending platform FOLK2FOLK and he previously held the posts of CFO and CRO at both Ask Inclusive Finance (AskIf), and the government-backed Start Up Loans Company.
Finboot welcomes Carles Garcia as its new partnerships lead based out of its Barcelona office. This strategic hire underscores Finboot’s commitment to expanding its green supply chain management solutions across Europe. Garcia will forge new partnerships and relationships to grow Finboot’s client base.
NTT DATA appoints Abhijit Dubey as CEO of its business outside Japan. The news follows the finalisation of the merger between NTT DATA and NTT Ltd., forming a $3billion-plus global powerhouse under the NTT DATA name. Previously, Dubey served as CEO of NTT Ltd.
FNZ, the global wealth management platform, has unveiled Enrique Sacau as the new CEO for Europe. He previously worked at FNZ as managing director, Europe, from 2014, driving business development efforts in the region. He has since held executive roles at Equiniti, serving as CEO of its digital division, and as CEO at Kneip.
Partnerships
Sabio Group, the digital customer experience (CX) transformation services specialist, has secured a multi-year contract with Leeds Building Society which will drive innovation in its contact centre, and improve customer care for the Society’s members. The partnership will shift the Building Society’s contact centre operations to a PCI-compliant Sabio OnDemand private cloud infrastructure.
Tuum, a next generation core banking platform, is strengthening its ongoing partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS). This strategic alignment introduces Tuum to the AWS Marketplace. The AWS Marketplace will feature Tuum’s core banking platform, providing financial institutions with an agile, cloud-native banking environment built on a modular, microservices architecture.
Fingerprints and Valid, the global payment technology provider and integrator of secure solutions for identification, mobile and payment ecosystems, have partnered in developing a biometric payment card for the Brazilian market. The card, which features Fingerprints’ proven biometric technology, will offer new levels of contactless security, convenience and hygiene.
Payment orchestration provider BR-DGE announces a partnership with open banking solutions company Trustly. The integration into BR-DGE’s global orchestration platform will provide its customers with access to Trustly’s global open banking capabilities, which in 2023, processed $58billion worth of transaction value. The partnership also extends to supporting iDEAL payments, an online payment method in the Netherlands.
Funding and investments
Payabli, the payments infrastructure solution for software companies, has closed a $20million Series A. The round was led by QED Investors with participation from existing investors TTV Capital, Fika Ventures and Bling Capital. The new round of funding will be used to drive further product innovation, reinforce security and scalability, as well as fuel new customer acquisition.
Norm Ai, an AI platform for converting regulations into computer code, has raised a fresh round of capital, securing a $27million Series A led by Coatue, with participation also from Bain Capital Ventures, Blackstone Innovations Investments, New York Life Ventures, Citi Ventures, TIAA Ventures and Jefferson River Capital. Over the past 11 months, Norm has raised more than $38million.
Crossover Markets, a digital asset trading technology firm, has raised $12million in a Series A funding round led by Illuminate Financial and DRW Venture Capital. Crossover plans to use the funds to expand its team, develop its execution-only electronic communication network, CROSSx, and bring 24/7 trading to additional asset classes.
Creatio, a vendor of a no-code platform to automate CRM and enterprise workflows, has bagged a $200million capital raise at a $1.2billion valuation. The investment round is led by Sapphire Ventures, with participation also from StepStone Group and current investors Volition Capital and Horizon Capital. The round is a minority investment focused on fuelling Creatio’s global expansion.
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